The steam box preview..

I am also struggling to see quite what market these things are aimed at, even reading through this thread hasn't really cleared it up.

Its clearly not really for people like us who already have PC's, but the more casual market will be stuck with a (relative to Windows) limited catalogue of games that might have more issues than the Windows versions.

I guess the gamble is it will encourage developers/publishers to put more effort into Linux versions of their games? Thus eliminated this issue.

Still seem pretty expensive for the more casual market.
 
The existing Steam Machine partners have missed the point in building huge, pricey, uber-powerful systems that cost twice (at least) that of consoles. You will need some graphical grunt to push graphics to console levels and beyond, but doing so renders the entire point of spending that sort of money pointless when you can then just get a console.

For me the big issue is the actual lack of games - very little of Steam's library runs on Linux, especially the AAA titles, so even if the hardware cost becomes reasonable there just isn't the games to back it up. And with SteamOS dependent on OpenGL engines I really don't see the SteamOS library *ever* being good enough.

The only thing of interest to me, as a geek, is the game streaming. In theory it'll be great to get my Titan doing the heavy lifting and beaming the content downstairs to my 50" plasma, but my gaming habits have always been cleanly divided: FPS on a PC where I need a mouse and keyboard, everything else on a console where a controller is fine. Occasionally things cross over, for instance Max Payne 3 powered by the Titan but controlled with a DualShock 3, but that's an exception.

It would be cool to get Audiosurf, Beat Hazard or Super Meat Boy running downstairs when I have friends round, and they could run perfectly fine on an A10 APU, but we are then into indie/casual gaming territory, and that sort of thing is covered by phones and tablets.

I just really want to know what's in Gabe's head, because from my perspective as a mere human I really don't understand what the hell is going on.
 
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